Education-based marketing is a process used to attract and land highly qualified clients by giving them what they want, which is information and advice, and removing what they don’t want, which is a sales pitch. You see, education-based marketers give away valuable free information that positions their expertise in the marketplace. Their message isn’t ME-focused – that selling-based message and selling-based marketing is a dead horse. And one thing I’ve learned over the years, is when you discover that your horse is dead, dismount.

You see, the problem with selling-based marketing is prospects will go out of their way to avoid you and your sales message. This is because anyone who has been around long enough has had at least one negative experience with a pushy, aggressive, unscrupulous salesperson. Once bitten, twice shy.

The truth is, people love to buy but hate being sold. Prospects get defensive when you give them a selling-based message because they think you’re going to try and sell them something that they don’t want, don’t need or can’t afford. Another problem with selling-based marketing is that you, as the salesperson, feel scared, timid or uncomfortable because you’re focusing on selling yourself instead of asking questions, listening and getting the client to sell themselves.

To be frank, I see this happening all the time at networking events, where people enter into the conversation and they start tooting their own horn, talking about how great their product or service is without even qualifying the person for interest first. They just “show up and throw up” with a data dump about their products and services. But in the end, it always leads to frustration because selling-based marketing doesn’t work.

On the other hand, with education-based marketing your message is built around the sharing of valuable information. Your educational message actually replaces your selling message. Instead of overtly trying to sell your services, you look for opportunities to give away valuable information, information that would benefit your target market. Not only does this make your job a whole lot more fun and enjoyable, it positions you as an expert in the mind of your prospect and enacts the law of reciprocity to work in your favour.

The Top 10 benefits of education-based marketing:

1.You give prospects what they really want, which is information and advice, and remove what they don’t want, which is a sales pitch.
2.You maintain your dignity because you never make any effort to sell.
3.You establish yourself as a credible authority because prospects see you as a reliable source of information and advice.
4.You don’t have to seek out new prospects -- they come to you. And they’ll often be pre-sold on working with you before they even meet you.
5.You reach prospects early during the first stage of the decision-making process, often before they call any of your competitors.
6.You identify lukewarm prospects, who may be afraid to call you, but aren’t afraid to request your free information.
7.You can track your marketing because you know precisely how many prospects respond to your marketing efforts and how many go on to become clients.
8.You increase your referral business from your prospects and clients because they feel loyal to you, due to your efforts to help them -- even if they don’t hire you.
9.You gain a competitive advantage because few -- if any of your competitors -- are using education-based marketing in their marketing efforts.
10.You’re able to leverage your marketing efforts by systematically presenting your best and most powerful marketing messages, even while you’re sleeping. And that’s the beauty of it.

This is a slightly amended version of an article written by Doren Aldana, leading Mortgage Marketing Coach. It has been shortened to make it suitable for web publishing.